Dept of Ed investigating alleged assault by ‘gender fluid’ boy

Steve Jordahl | October 10, 2018

(OneNewsNow) – A public school district in Georgia is under fire after a five-year old-girl said she was sexually assaulted by a transgender student in the school restroom.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the female kindergarten student, has asked the U.S. Dept. of Education to investigate the 2017 incident at Oakhurst Elementary in Decatur.

The federal agency announced in September it is doing so.

ADF filed a Title IX civil rights complaint with the federal agency in May, claiming Superintendent David Dude and school officials have shown “deliberate indifference” toward the alleged victim.

The female student says the male student, described as “gender fluid,” pushed her against a restroom wall and touched her genital area.

Despite a plea from parents in 2016, the public school district follows a transgender-friendly policy that allowed the male student to enter the girls’ restroom without being punished. The same policy also requires male students to be addressed by a female pronoun, and allows male students to participate in female sports team and to room with females on school trips.

Decatur could have reversed its policy after the Trump administration dropped a controversial Obama-era transgender policy but school leaders kept it in place, The Atlanta Journal- Constitution reported.

ADF attorney Christiana Holcomb tells OneNewsNow that City Schools of Decatur refused to investigate the girl’s claims of assault, which is required under Title IX, and has refused to change the policy that affects approximately 5,600 students at nine schools.

“And they even refused to remove the little boy from the little girl’s classroom,” Holcomb alleges.

ADF is keeping the child’s name private but her mother, Pascha Thomas, cooperated with the law firm to produce a video (see here) about the allegations.

A school district spokeswoman told the AJC the school district is “aware of the unfounded allegation,” though it is unclear if that denial referred to the girl’s claims or the ADF lawsuit.

Holcomb tells OneNewsNow it’s tragically ironic that a sexual assault is playing out at the same time activists in Washington are demanding that women be heard and believed.

“And yet,” she says, “in the same breath they turn around and tell this 5-year-old kindergartner – this little bitty girl – that her sexual assault essentially doesn’t matter.”

ADF is working with Norcross attorney Vernadette Broyles, who told the Atlanta newspaper that the only action taken so far was a police report that was filed with Family and Children Services. Yet that state agency only investigated the mother and child, which appears to be an act of retaliation for her speaking out, the attorney said.

Broyles received a letter Sept. 14 from the Office of Civil Rights informing her it was opening an investigation of the allegations.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit